- getting to travel as much as I feel like to places I'd really like to go but don't normally have the opportunity to go for a "long weekend"
- getting to try living a different life - not just the kind of swap I've had when I moved from NY -> NH -> MD -> WA, but a swap in a big sense where historical differences make it a different culture and the diversity is entirely different
In some ways I did. I've been to London twice, to Northern and Southern Ireland, I'm going to France, I've explored the city of Dublin pretty thoroughly - and all this in 3.5 months - so that's doing pretty well there. If I had my full 6 months + here, I would've done more (Scotland, Germany and Barcelona being the three objectives).
And I did get to try living in a different culture - it's been an absolute blast. What I've seen, I've liked - but again - not long enough. Not long enough for things like being called "love" by shop attendants to not make me giggle - not long enough to register the abnormal for an American as normal for my little sphere in the world. I haven't made friends outside of work and I just recently started making friends inside work - there's just not enough time for that in 3.5 months with everything else.
So, time is my enemy in this case. I'm choosing to go to my "home" since that's what Seattle is to me now. Ireland doesn't get to be it - so when I say "home" I mean Seattle - the city I know, love and enjoy. For 3.5 months, I did a lot. I've laughed, traveled, worked my butt off, learned a ton and then some, picked up some new phrases (to everyone's amusement),
I have a little over one month left. In that time, my only plan thus far is to spend 9 days in France in August traveling all over that country (it's something I've always wanted to do and I don't know why - so I'm going to do it dagnabbit!) However, these past few days I've questioned what it would take to make me really happy that I came here - what's left for me to do? I have things I might do, but I want to make a list of things I really really don't want to miss out on:
- enjoy the people around me
- get myself over to Western Ireland to Galway and the surrounding area (so I can say I've been all over this island)
Seattle, I'll see you sometime Monday Aug 21 - the same day I say "until we meet again" to Irish soil. Ireland, I'll be back - have no fear.
Aren't you entertained by my first "thoughtful" entry in this blog? How abnormal compared to travel-logs, ineptness with appliances and funny stories. I shall have more of those another day.
5 comments:
My favourite kinds of blogs are those where there are a lot of 'thoughtful' entries; at first in the past I was surprised at just how much of their souls some people bared, but even though I don't think I'm a total thought-voyeur, I really enjoy writings about what people think more than those about what they did.
Summary: yes, I'm entertained! Keep 'em comin'!
[having said that, the appliance adventures were just hilarious!]
OK, you're making me sad. I'm sad that you have to leave so soon. But at least we'll have a better chance of seeing you on our turf!
exigently: The thoughtful entries are the most interesting to read and the easiest/hardest to write. It's really easy to write what I'm thinking about or what's babbling in my head, but to publish that on the internet? HA! So although they flow from my fingertips the quickest since I don't feel like I'm making some bulleted list fancy, they are more likely to be hidden behind the veneer of "this is what I did". Right now, I'm doing too much to think as much - but my head'll kick in shortly.
tracy: Yeah - it makes me sad too. I'll be on your side of the States in the DC area probably sometime this next year. And maybe this time I'll actually get to see you!!! Yeah - that would be nice. Email me how things are going. I hope you're having a relaxing and wonderful summer away from the kidlings.
Yep, I agree it's relatively easy to pipe thoughts through fingers into computer but then publishing them? I always find that a trifle scary — and sometimes have to read and re-read several times just to make sure I haven't left out any negatives and inverted the meaning or inadvertently insulted anybody (or worse still: mispunctuated! :) )
I think there's a knack to writing comprehensively and putting your thoughts down but unless you live in a cave you really can't write that you hate somebody in a public forum unless you can be exceptionally delicate.
I don't even feel tempted to write about hating people (then again, there aren't people I can think of offhand that are worth the energy of that kind of hatred). It's more the exposing of self to unknown people. Although oddly, I've kept other blogs at other times, and found that when all my readers don't know me - when I can claim anonymity - then I write more about what I'm thinking than what I'm doing. However, this blog was setup with the purpose of being an update for friends and family, so nearly every reader at the moment is known to me. It's just starting to acquire readers from cyberspace's wilds.
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